Is cruising through Alaska in a giant floating city not what you had in mind? Or maybe you’re one of the 10% of cruise visitors who return to Alaska. There are numerous smaller cruise offerings from local, eco-friendly carriers.

Far from the crowds of conventional high-volume tourism, our personal approach offers a genuine and intimate encounter with Alaska. It’s an eco-friendly way to explore Alaska’s gorgeous and diverse marine environment. Because of its small size, our 65-foot historic yacht can sail into quiet coves and navigate ice-bound channels that larger boats must avoid, letting Discovery passengers get an up close and personal view of glaciers and wildlife that is simply not possible on a larger cruise ship.

Linblad Expeditions

In 1979, Sven Lindblad founded Special Expeditions as a division of Lindblad Travel, enabling the company to further its mission of offering innovative and educational travel expeditions that were primarily marine focused. Offerings expanded to Costa Rica, Baja California, and gorgeous Alaska cruises providing travelers with opportunities to explore, with small ship cruises, the islands, coves and open spaces of the sea that reminded Lindblad of the remote and vast expanse of the Serengetti plains. The company’s name was later changed to Lindblad Expeditions.

Today the company is focused on finding creative ways to explore the places already “discovered.” Their growing fleet of small expedition ships, Zodiacs, sea kayaks, onboard Naturalists and underwater cameras are all examples of how Lindblad continually strives to help open the eyes of our guests when it comes to truly exploring. They do this because they believe the more their guests connect with these incredible places, the more they will become a force for preserving and protecting them.

Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic small-ship expedition Alaska cruises let you go where others can’t, with the experts who know Alaska best. Each Alaska tour is an active, engaging adventure travel vacation through wild Alaska and beyond. Our passionate Expedition Team and experienced cruise ship Captains will take you to hidden coves and narrow channels that only Alaska adventure cruise travel experts know. From the ship, Zodiac landing craft and kayaks bring you further inside Alaska. Until it’s just you and the whales, bears, eagles and remarkable wildlife that makes a small ship Alaska cruise such a special adventure travel destination.

One of my favorite things about the Zipline Excursion with Alaska Canopy Adventures was the Unimog ride! Here’s a view from the back as we crawled up a road impassible to mortal trucks.

Riding in the Unimog through the Alaskan Rainforest to begin the Zipline Excursion!

The Zip lines are really safe, especially with the redundant cables. But… you still need to learn how to stop yourself, luckily the crew is prepared and the first zip line is an opportunity to learn from your mistakes.

Alaska Zip Line Adventure

Here’s a close up of the zip line rigging that you’re riding on through the rainforest.

When riding a zip line, your hand is your brake and keeping your hand up top helps keep you facing forward, unless you like spinning wildly through the air.

Between some of the zip line sections are cable suspension bridges through the rainforest canopy to take you to the next platform. Honestly, I felt like the bridges and platforms were more scary than the ziplines themselves. Zipping is fun!